


Lily Waits

by Dorasolo



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-08
Updated: 2014-01-08
Packaged: 2018-01-07 23:12:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,483
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1125516
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dorasolo/pseuds/Dorasolo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Many will remember how they thrice defied the Dark Lord, how they hated eachother before they loved eachother, how they had the best friends in the world, how their innate goodness allowed them to miss the snake in the grass.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lily Waits

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted March 19, 2009 as part of a fic remix-a-thon.

Certain death sure makes a person batty, Lily thinks, as she looks out the window of her temporary abode at Godric's Hollow. She and James just heard the first Crack! signaling Apparition, saw the silver-green masks, and knew the end was here.

They had been halfheartedly playing Exploding Snap on the new deck of cards, the one with naked Wizards on them. Sirius brought the ridiculous trinket over to their flat in London the night Sirius, Peter, and James cooked up the scheme to have Peter be the secret keeper instead of Sirius in a bait-and-switch that would _surely_ save their lives.

_"Come on Lily, it'll be brilliant," James had wheedled, hazel eyes big and sorrowful, "they'll come after Sirius first, because everybody expects it to be Sirius, but it'll be Peter. And nobody will come after Peter until it's too late. Kingsley said --"_

_"I know what Kingsley said," snapped Lily, looking at Sirius, who for all this bravado and strength looked like he was about to cry._

_"Sirius, do you really think," she continued, looking at Peter, who appeared to be much more excited than the situation warranted, eyes darting about anxiously._

_I don't trust him, she had wanted to scream, I trust _you_ , Sirius. Instead, in a voice much weaker than intended, she said "I love you, Sirius. It isn't only Remus --"_

_Sirius had looked away and thickly reassured her that this was the better plan, the more Marauderly plan, so she should stop being such a damn woman and just go with it. She remembered a day when there was no tension between Remus and Sirius and wished Remus was here to talk some sense into the others instead of off doing who-knows-what with werewolves._

_In the end she had agreed, because with Peter in the room, she could never voice her fears._

James looks at her now, wild eyed, mouth open like a fish. Twenty minutes ago they had put Harry into his cradle and continued with their tradition of sex in the living room to pass the time. As per usual, James tried to be quiet to avoid waking the baby, but Lily never was able to climax quietly unless silenced by spell. They had laughed afterward, like the world was not ending, breathless and happy.

She blinks, remembering.

_"I love you, Lily Evans," said James, shaking a bit._

_She marveled at the fact that after all this time, he still was capable of shaking at the sight of her._

_"Potter," she teased._

_"Yes?"_

_"No, you berk, it's Lily Potter now."_

_His smile could have brightened the darkest of nights into day._

She blinks again, and blurts the first thing that comes to mind, "Peter Pettigrew never liked me. Never."

Another Crack! indicates another Death Eater.

"Lily," he wobbles, realization creeping over him, along with gooseflesh, "It's only been you, forever, and --"

"I know," she says, unwilling to let her gaze or voice break even though James has started crying.

"Go upstairs," he begs, wiping his eyes.

"Stop crying," she pleads, willing her lower lip not to tremble, to the sound of another Crack! and another.

"Go," he whines, looking every bit the twenty one years he is and nothing like the fierce rebellion fighter he's trained to be, and she rushes up the stairs to the child she's too young to have.

Her heart breaks because she knows that this is the last time she'll see her husband, the father of her child, her disheveled, unruly love. She runs upstairs to Harry and crawls under the bed with him, silencing his baby babble with a spell. What kind of mother silences her child, she thinks, horrified. Harry is staring back at her with her own eyes and James' messy hair and she thinks she should silence herself to prevent the keening wail welling up in her gut.

_"Andromeda, I'm pregnant," Lily dropped one day at the Apothecary where Andromeda Tonks taught her poultices to soothe scorch wounds._

_Andromeda, not one for emotional outbursts, quirked an eyebrow. "War times make people careless," she said, matter-of-factly. "Wedding night?"_

_Lily shook her head. "I think it was the night we found my parents," she said carelessly, like she was not plagued with nightmares of finding her parents dead under a blazing Dark Mark. "Or the night they found pieces of Benjy. I wasn't thinking so straight either of those days."_

_"I'll be there for you," Andromeda promised, gray eyes steady with unspoken care, and she hadn't let Lily down. Andromeda knew what it was like to have a baby and at the same time, cry for a mother who could not be there to hold her hand._

She hears a cacophony of voices downstairs and realizes that her headstrong James has opened the door instead of letting them break it down. James believes there's an honor in fighting, and would never cower and wait for them to come to him.

James is yelling and through the window in Harry's room she sees sparks of green, red, yellow, and purple. Lily hears swearing, followed by several thuds.

"What," James yells, his vitriol glaringly obvious, "did you tell them not to attack? What is this?"

She thinks that James has taken out two, maybe three of the Death Eaters, but that he probably was barely challenged. She wonders exactly how many are out there, and while she is glad James will go out fighting, she wonders if it's a fair fight.

"James," whines a voice, and with a start Lily realizes Peter Pettigrew is there, at their house, ushering in the Death Eaters.

"He wants you for himself," mutters Peter, apologetically.

"You're just the audience," James answers, voice hard. "The fact that you're here at all, Wormtail, I just..."

Lily blinks, remembering.

_"It's not Remus." Lily stared at Sirius's gray eyes, filled with anger to the point of being unrecognizable._

_"How do you know," he spat. "Does he come here after his adventures, then? Does he come to you to speak of Muggle literature? He hasn't been to the flat in three weeks, Lily! Do you know where he goes?"_

_Helpless, she shook her head. "I don't. I'm sorry. But it's not him, he would never betray you, Sirius. And he'd never betray me or James."_

_Lily felt uneasy. She had this exact conversation with Remus less than a week ago.  
_

Lily perversely wants to scream "I told you so!" so that somebody acknowledges that it's been Peter all along and that Remus and Sirius can go back to being Remus and Sirius and stop this passive aggressive behavior that has muddled their time together for the past few months. Everybody's a suspect, everybody's a detective, but nobody is happy. Lily closes her eyes and tries to remember a better day, because she certainly doesn't want to _die_ remembering her best friends torn apart by suspicion, but she cannot because the world has gone still.

"Wormtail, he's downed three of my best men while you beg," a cold serpentine voice chides, and Lily feels a chill down her spine like an ice bath. "You go back to London and find Sirius Black, carry on the plan."

"Yes, Master," Peter agrees, albeit uneasily, and Lily hears a crack signaling his disappearance. In the madness she realizes she hasn't heard Severus speak, and for that she is grateful. She doesn't want Severus in this audience to see her die.

"Potter, last try," hisses The Dark Lord. "Give me the child and you and your Mudblood are safe."

"No," says James, simply. "I'd rather die."

"So be it," he says, and Lily knows James is dead. She decides that she does not want to live in a world that doesn't have James Potter in it, so she's not going to die under a bed any more than he was going to wait in the living room. Crawling out from underneath, she puts Harry in his cradle, standing in front of it to await her fate.

Lily waits. It isn't long now.

In a moment, The Dark Lord will offer to spare her for the baby. He will tell her that she can come with him, find love again, have other children. She will spit at his feet and tell her that he murdered her love and that she'll be damned if she'll surrender to him, to the cause, to fate. He'll smile coldly, shrug as if to say "You chose this," and chant the killing curse. She will step in between the curse and Harry, and it will all be over.

Many will remember how they thrice defied the Dark Lord, how they hated eachother before they loved eachother, how they had the best friends in the world, how their innate goodness allowed them to miss the snake in the grass. There will be fables, tall tales and truths alike, about Lily and James Potter.  



End file.
